Doctor is a ‘champion’ for dementia patients
San Antonio physician who watched mother’s health suffer became a prominent researcher on neurodegenerative diseases
SAN ANTONIO — From an early age, Dr. Sudha Seshadri wanted to understand the brain and why its functions sometimes go terribly awry.
As a child in India, she watched her mother’s health deteriorate from a neurological disease that affected her ability to move and speak. By high school, she knew she wanted either to study the brain or treat patients.
Seshadri is now a prominent researcher on dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. Since 2017, she has served as the founding director of the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio, where she has recruited top researchers and advanced studies of drugs that have the potential to treat Alzheimer’s.
She continues seeing patients even as she runs the Biggs Institute and conducts research.
“There’s no doubt that Dr. Seshadri is a huge champion for those impacted by dementia broadly,” said Maria Carrillo, chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Association. “She has been committed to dementia work for decades and is an expert that can address it genetically, epidemiologically, clinically.”
The patient perspective
Seshadri’s experience with her mother — who she believes had a severe form of multiple sclerosis — has informed her approach as a doctor and researcher. She died when Seshadri was 18 and just beginning her undergraduate studies in India.
While she completed her undergraduate degree, Seshadri served as the guardian of her younger brother, who was finishing high school.
She went on to earn a medical degree in internal medicine and a doctorate in neurobiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. There she met her husband, Vasan Ramachandran, a cardiologist.
The couple moved to Massachusetts in the early 1990s after Ramachandran secured a position at the Framingham Heart Study, a prestigious research initiative that has tracked thousands of people over three generations to identify the progression of and risk factors for heart disease.
Seshadri took a fellowship with the study’s dementia program but always intended to return home.
She did a few years later, taking a position at All India Institute while her husband moved 2,000 miles away to establish a school of public health. By the time they reunited, Ramachandran was offered the opportunity to return to the Framingham study.
Seshadri felt torn about leaving India, where there was a dearth of neurology specialists. But she also knew her work would have greater reach in the U.S.
One-stop shop
Seshadri pursued a neurology residency at Boston University School of Medicine, joining the research faculty in 2005. By 2013, she was leading the neurology arm of Framingham, which is affiliated with the university. Still, she yearned for more. When Seshadri was contacted by UT Health San Antonio about leading a new center for Alzheimer’s in San Antonio — where she would have the chance to conduct research and treat patients — it sounded perfect.
Dr. William Henrich, president of UT Health San Antonio, had been approached by Glenn Biggs, a business leader and the first chairman of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and he refused to accept that nothing could be done for patients like him, his wife said. He met with Henrich and the dean of the medical school, pitching the idea that San Antonio could become known for Alzheimer’s research in the same way MD Anderson in Houston is known for advanced cancer care.
“Glenn was a person who would not take no for an answer. He just kept searching,” said Ann Biggs, 87. “He planted the seed. In their mind, I’m sure they had already thought about it, and he pushed them.”
Biggs died in 2015, about two months shy of their 60th wedding anniversary.
Henrich raised $50 million toward the establishment of an Alzheimer’s center.
Seshadri stood out because of her impeccable résumé and “sincerity of purpose” — a genuine desire to improve the lives of patients.
“She is indefatigable,” Henrich said. “She is sincerely dedicated to finding a way to mitigate the devastating effects of these neurodegenerative conditions, and she will do whatever is required to make the patient better, make the family better.”